Podcast You Should Hear: The Dan Le Batard Show

What’s it about?: The LeBatard Show is a daily sports radio show that refuses to be a sports radio show. They refuse to take sports too seriously and instead, they opt for finding the humor or interesting things in sport that no one else is talking about. They also have no fear of abandoning sports altogether and going off into who the hell knows what topic.

The more time you spend with the show the more rewarding it is. To get there you have to realize what it is not. It is not a show that talks in-depth about games before they happen, it is not a show that makes predictions or peddles in sports cliches. Instead, it is a show that makes fun of sports and everything around it for being so serious. In return, the crew refuses to take themselves too seriously and they have fun in the process.

Sometimes, I wonder what the show sounds like to the uninitiated. What do you think when you hear them talk to Tim Legler about his Halloween decorations instead of the upcoming NBA games? Or when they bring Ron Magill on to answer animal questions? Or why so many callers refer to Tim Kurkjan as Tom and no one bats an eye? If you have any of those questions it probably means that “You don’t get the show!” but that doesn’t mean that you can’t.

The show is centered around its namesake, Dan LeBatard, an award-winning journalist formerly of the Miami Herald. LeBatard is joined by co-host Jon “StuGotz” Weiner, producers Mike Ryan, Billy “Guillermo” Gill, Roy Bellamy, Chris Cote, and Allyson Turner. It is the best-produced show you’ll hear, but what makes it even better is each person has their own character and get their moments to shine (really waiting on a new Roy Top 10).

The LeBatard Show airs five days a week on ESPN radio with a local hour airing before on 790 the Ticket in Miami. All four hours are available (sans commercials, and bits with music) each afternoon for listening in podcast form. There is also a daily best-of version that I refuse to listen to because the reward of the show is hearing everything and not feeling left out when the polls come around.

If Seinfeld was the show about nothing (it wasn’t, the show on the show was but I digress), the LeBatard Show is the radio show about nothing and it’s why I love it.